by David Archer
“Then let him wait,” Jenny said, still partially breathless. “There are four more men down the hall and at least three of them are armed, so we are lucky they didn’t hear any of that. We have to get past them at least to get out, but there are phones down there. We might be able to call for help and let the GPS signal lead them to us.”
“Okay, then let’s go,” Sarah said.
TWENTY-FOUR
Jenny nodded and got her feet. She leaned over with her hands on her knees for a moment, taking in deep breaths, then straightened up and reached for the gun. Sarah handed it over willingly and the three of them started down the hallway.
Once more, they stayed against the wall and moved quickly. When they got closer to the opening into the room with the computer, Jenny motioned for them to stop.
“I have to take them by surprise,” she said. “Both of you wait here. When the shooting stops, you can come on out.”
She started to move away, but Sarah grabbed her arm. “Hold on,” she said. “There’s just one of you and four of them. What if Renée and I created a distraction?”
“Like what?” Jenny asked.
“We go running down there, crying and acting like we’re scared to death, and just throw ourselves down on the floor. Those guys are going to be looking down at two half naked women, that’s gonna hold their attention for at least a couple of seconds. That should give you time to do what you do, right?”
Jenny looked at her and grinned. “That’s gutsy,” she said. “You realize it’s dangerous, right? They may shoot first and ask questions later.”
Sarah grinned back. “In which case you will blow their balls off for us, right?”
“I’m liable to do that anyway,” Jenny said. “Okay, it’s a good plan. You rush out, and I’ll come out a second later. Just be sure to hit the floor, they probably won’t shoot you when you’re down.”
Jenny looked at Renée, and she nodded. The two of them got ahead of Jenny and they all continued down the hallway. When they were just a few feet from the end, they stopped, looked at one another, and then Sarah and Renée threw themselves out onto the floor in the room.
“What the hell?” shouted the man at the computer, and the other men knocked their table over as they got to their feet and drew their weapons. “How the hell did you get out?”
Sarah looked up at him. “The man, he opened the door, and then the other man hit him. We didn’t know what was happening, so we ran.”
All four of them were on their feet, staring down at the scantily clad girls. The three men holding guns had lowered them, and that’s when Jenny stepped out.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
All four men fell and Renée and Sarah got to their feet. They looked down at the carnage, each of the men with his head blown open by forty-five caliber slugs, and then Renée turned her head and vomited.
Jenny hurried to the door that led out of the room and checked it, but it was locked. She turned to the computer and looked at it, shook her head, then spun and looked for the cell phone she had seen earlier. It was laying on the floor, and she picked it up and dialed the number for Allison.
A recording came on. “Please dial your access code,” it said.
Jenny threw the phone down and dug through the pockets of the dead men until she found another. The same recording played, and she looked up at the other girls. “Some kind of restricted access,” she said. “They must have something like their own cell tower, and you have to have a code to make a call.”
“Damn,” Sarah said. She took the phone from Jenny and looked at it, but got the same result when she tried to call Noah. “Now what?”
Jenny turned and looked at the computer again. “This thing is on the Internet,” she said. “Maybe we can send an email or something.” She sat at the terminal and looked at the monitor, but it was not a normal web browser. Apparently it was connected directly into a database of some sort, with messages transmitting in and out. There was no way to put an email address in, or even to go to a different webpage.
“Renée, do you still have those keys?”
Renée shook her head. “No, I threw them down back there.”
“Okay, okay, I’m thinking. There has to be some way we can get out of here. See if any of these other guys have keys.”
They checked all the pockets, but didn’t come up with any keys that would fit the door. They were standing in the middle of the room, desperately trying to think of some way to either escape or get help when Sarah looked at the phone she was still holding. It was a smartphone, a Samsung something or other, and she started looking through the different apps that were installed. She found the settings button and her face lit up when she saw the mobile hotspot. Jenny and Renée looked at her, then glanced at the phone.
Jenny shrugged. “It’s worth a try,” she said.
Sarah hit the icon and the mobile hotspot lit up. “Acquiring service,” it printed across the screen, and then, “Mobile Hotspot Activated.”
All three girls heard a clicking sound as the subcoms found the Wi-Fi signal and began hacking through the password. A moment later, Sarah said, “Noah? Can you hear me?”
“Sarah?” they heard Neil say. “Is Jenny with you? Is she okay?”
“I’m here, baby,” Jenny said. “Trouble is, we don’t know where we are. Are you all right?”
“He’s all right,” came Marco’s voice. “Renée?”
“I’m here, I’m here,” Renée said, a smile splitting her face. “Guys, we’ve been so worried.”
“No need to worry about me,” Marco said. “I had super Neil come to my rescue.”
“But where is Noah?” Sarah said. “Has anybody heard from him?”
“Yeah, a while ago,” Neil said. “He’s okay, and he was on a plane headed toward you. Can you get to a phone and call him?”
“No, dammit. I don’t know where we are, but they’ve got some kind of restricted cell phone system here. We managed to get a hotspot working on a phone, but we can’t make any calls. Right now, you guys are all we’ve got.”
“Wait, you’re on a mobile hotspot?” Neil asked. “Keep it on, and keep talking to us. I should be able to ping it and get its location.”
“Okay, but can you get hold of Noah?”
Marco answered. “Let me try that,” he said. “Brain boy is busy, and Noah is in a plane. I don’t know if I’ll be able to reach him or not, but I’ll try.”
They heard him punching buttons on the phone, but he got a recording that said his party was not available.
“Okay, I’m going to call Allison. If Neil can figure out where you are, she can at least send in the marines.”
They heard him dialing again, and they could hear the conversation through his subcom. “Marco? Allison. What’s the situation?”
“We heard from the girls,” Marco said. “They don’t know where they are, and they can’t call out, but they got a mobile hotspot working on a phone. That let them connect to us through subcoms, but we can’t reach Noah. Neil is trying to figure out where they are…”
“I got it, I got it,” Neil shouted. He rattled off GPS coordinates, and Marco repeated them to Allison.
“Can you get them some help? They said they can’t get out, and they can’t call out or anything.”
“You’re damned right I can,” Allison said.
The line went dead instantly, and Marco said, “Okay, she’s on it. We’ll stick with you this way until help arrives.”
“God, baby, it’s so good to hear your voice,” Renée said. “Are you really okay?”
Marco laughed loudly. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “You should have seen it, they kidnapped me and took me out to the yacht with a bunch of people, and Neil stole Noah’s Charger and drove it right across the ocean to come after me. He shot down a helicopter, blew away the bastards who were holding me prisoner, and then I was able to take over the ship. We brought it back to Galveston, and the FBI has taken over here. We got our main targets, but the rest
of them have been arrested at the insistence of the FBI, and Allison gave the okay. I guess that means they get to live a little while longer.”
“Wow, you did all that?” Jenny asked. “Neil, I’m so proud of you. But tell me something, if you’ve done all that already, what time is it?”
“Time? It’s almost eleven thirty, here.”
* * * * *
The F-15 was racing across the sky, coming into Nevada airspace. Noah had repeatedly tried his phone, but there was no signal at that altitude.
Esmeralda was a hell of a pilot, and had done a terrific job of getting him across the country. He was ignoring the fact that the fuel reading was getting dangerously low, trusting that she was able to calculate how much fuel she would need to complete the journey and get them safely on the ground.
Suddenly, Esmeralda spoke through her intercom system. “I have an incoming call on satellite connection,” she said. A second later, she said in Allison’s voice, “Camelot? Can you hear me?”
“I read you five by five,” he said. “Any update?”
“Yes. I have GPS coordinates on the location for Sarah, Renée and Jenny. The location is about thirty miles north-northeast of Las Vegas, in the desert. Satellite view looks like you might be able to set down close by. I’ve already given Esmeralda the coordinates, so I suggest you make sure your seat belt is fastened. And Noah?”
“Yes?”
“Go get those girls for me.”
Noah realized that the plane was descending rapidly and looked out at the ground that was coming up quickly. “Esmeralda?”
“We are approximately nine minutes from landing,” she said. “I’ve taken a look at the site by satellite, and we can definitely put down. They may have to retrieve the aircraft with a truck, however.”
“Can you tell me anything about the location?” Noah asked.
“There is one structure, a large concrete building. I will bring the aircraft to a stop as close to it as I can, probably about a hundred meters away.”
“Go for it,” Noah said.
True to her word, Esmeralda put the airplane on the desert ground minutes later. The landing was rough and Noah suspected there was damage to the aircraft, but he didn’t worry about it. By the time he came to a stop, they were only thirty feet from the concrete wall ahead of them.
The canopy opened and both Noah and Esmeralda climbed out. Noah had two of the submachine guns that he had brought with him, and passed one to the robot.
“Find us a way in, Esmeralda,” he said.
* * * * *
“Noah is on the way,” Neil said suddenly. “Allison was able to get a message to him, and they’re actually going to land right where you are. Everything ought to be fine, now.” He sounded relieved.
“Everything will be fine,” Jenny said, “when I get you tangled up in bed with me again, boy.”
“I beg your pardon?” Neil said. “You know better than to talk to me like that.”
Jenny suddenly looked sheepish. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I just got a little emotional.”
“That’s better,” Neil said.
Renée and Marco had switched to a separate channel so they could talk privately. Sarah was trying to ignore all of them, just wishing she could hear from Noah, when a sudden rumbling sound was heard outside. All three women looked in the direction of the sound, and that’s why none of them saw what was coming.
Schlatter, conscious and back on his feet, stepped into the room. He was holding a gun in his hand and it was pressed to the head of the FBI agent. All three women spun when they heard him behind them, and then they froze. Jenny didn’t even get the chance to aim her weapon before she saw that he was ready to squeeze the trigger.
“Well, isn’t this nice,” he said. “Thought you killed me, didn’t you, bitch? I guess I’m a little tougher than you thought, right?”
“Let him go, Schlatter,” Jenny said. “It’s all over for you, anyway. Our reinforcements have arrived outside.”
“Yeah, it’s probably over for me,” he said. “But not until I do what I promised you I was going to do. Remember that? When I came to see you earlier? I said you would have to decide which one of you was going to die first, remember? Well, that hasn’t changed.”
Jenny raised her weapon and pointed it in his direction, but he ducked himself behind the agent.
“Now, now, now,” he said. “You don’t really think I’m going to give you that kind of chance, do you? All I want is one of you, just one. You even get to pick which one. All she’s got to do is step around here where I can see her clearly, and then one shot and it’s all over.”
“You’re crazy,” Sarah said. “You can’t do anything to us now.”
“Can’t I?” Schlatter said, his voice sounding almost hysterical. “I can kill this bastard, instead. Are you willing to let him die in your place?” He poked the barrel against the agent’s head, and the man winced.
“Don’t give him what he wants, girls,” the agent said. “He’s probably going to kill us all anyway. Don’t give him the satisfaction of making you do what he says.”
“No,” Jenny said. “I’m not going let him kill you.”
“Well,” Schlatter said, “the only way you’re going to stop me is by telling me which one of you I’m going to kill. That’s the deal, take it or leave it. One of you volunteers to die, and then this is all over. Hell, I’ll even surrender, so you can arrest my ass.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Jenny said.
Schlatter crouched behind the agent for a moment, and then he called out, “Andrews. Step on out here, and show them what you got.”
The man who had been with Schlatter, the one whose face had been mangled by the concrete wall, stepped out of the hallway. Jenny turned her gun toward him, but then she froze again.
In his hand, he held a grenade. The pin was gone, and all he had to do was let go of the spoon to set it off.
“Oh, geez,” Jenny said. Renee hadn’t searched the man thoroughly, or they may have had guns and grenades in a supply closet down the hall. It didn’t matter now, though. “You let that go and we all die.”
“Exactly. Now, let’s try this again,” Schlatter said. “One of you volunteers to die, and he’ll put the pin back in that pineapple. He knows our lives are over. You don’t cooperate, he’s going to let go, and then we all go out together.” He made a choking sound. “That’s the choice. One of you volunteers to die, and I’ll kill her. Then I drop the gun, he secures the grenade, and this is all over.”
“You honestly think we would believe you?” Renée asked. “Why would we? We let you kill one of us, and then he could set off the grenade anyway.”
“I won’t,” Andrews said. “If he says put the pin back in, I will.” His broken nose made him sound like he had a bad cold.
“You see him? My people are loyal to me. So, which one will it be? How about you, the one who had red hair last week? Are you willing to die for your friends?”
There was a crashing sound somewhere in the building, but Schlatter didn’t pay any attention.
“If I thought it would save them,” Sarah said, “I would. But like my friend said, why should we believe you?”
“Because I have nothing to lose,” Schlatter said. “If I just wanted to kill us all, I would’ve done it already. I’m offering you the chance to come out of this as heroes. Well, two of you, anyway.”
Jenny licked her lips and ignored Neil screaming in her ear. She was sure that Marco was talking to Renée, as well. “Fine,” she said. “It’ll be me.”
“Like hell it will,” Sarah said, grabbing hold of her arm. “Jenny, you can’t do that.”
“He only wants one of us,” Jenny said. “I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to either of you.”
“And how do you think we feel?” Renée said. “You can’t do this, Jenny. I still don’t believe him, anyway.”
“I do,” Jenny said. “I understand how he thinks, and he’s right
. If he just wanted to kill us all, he already would have.”
She lowered her gun and passed it to Renée. “I’m stepping around,” she said. “Just make sure you honor your word.”
“I certainly will,” Schlatter said. He watched her as she moved to the side, away from Sarah and Renée, until she stood directly to his right.
Jenny looked at her friends. “Take care of Neil,” she said. “Tell him I loved him.”
Renée was staring at her, but then motion caught the corner of her eye. Schlatter was turning the gun toward Jenny, and Renée saw the look in the eyes of the agent, and everything went into slow motion.
As soon as the gun was away from his head, he suddenly spun and grabbed Andrews’s hand. The man shrieked, but the agent was holding on with a death grip, keeping the spoon locked against the grenade.
For a split second, Schlatter’s gun was aimed into the space between Jenny and Renée, and Renée raised the gun she was holding and fired. The bullet struck Schlatter in the chest, and he looked down at himself in shock. He looked up at her and tried to swing his gun in her direction, but she fired again. The second bullet took him through his head, and Schlatter fell dead.
Jenny leapt, snatching the gun from Renée and throwing herself toward Andrews and the agent. They were still grappling over the grenade, and Jenny put the pistol against Andrews’s head and squeezed the trigger once. He fell limp and the agent held onto his hand for dear life.
At that moment, the door burst open and Noah and Esmeralda rushed inside. Noah stared around, taking in everything in the room, seeing the six dead bodies, three nearly naked women, and a man in his underwear who was holding onto the hand of a dead man.
Sarah rushed to him and threw her arms around his neck, but Jenny simply turned and looked at him.
“Cut it a little close, didn’t you?” she asked.
“I got here as soon as I could,” Noah said. “Looks to me like you had it under control.”
Jenny rolled her eyes, then walked to Renée and pulled her into a hug. “You okay?”
“No,” Renée said. “But I will be.”
